When I wake up in the morning
by osiris5
Summary: Sam finds an unusual artefact


When I wake up in the morning, I am almost guaranteed to have an unusual day. I suppose that's the thing I like most about working at the SGC. The variety. I've always had a tendency to get bored easily, as anyone who's sat through a briefing with me will be able to tell you. My origami skills seem to improve with each new mission. But today, something feels different to normal. I know that today will be different, I don't know how, or if it will be good or bad, but I know that today is no ordinary day. Still, despite the uncertainty, I walk through the security and down to level 28 with a spring in my step. I'm a man with a mission and god help anyone who gets in my way. The only problem is, I'm not sure what the mission is.  
  
"Jack! Wait up," I hear a familiar voice behind me. I turn round to see an anxious archaeologist jogging towards me carrying his usual rolls and files of paper and a mug of coffee. "Can I talk to you for a second?"   
  
"Sure," I reply, wondering what he wants. We head towards his office where he dumps everything on his already overcrowded desk, spills his coffee and goes to shut the door. "What's all this about?" I ask, curious now that I've had the brief walk to the office to chew things over.  
  
"Jack, you've got to do something about Sam." Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't that.  
  
"Why, what's wrong with her?" I ask, concerned.   
  
"Nothing physical. I know you have feelings for her and you have for a while." At these words I stare at the floor, trying to ignore the aching feeling in my heart. "We both know that, but what you don't know is that she feels the same. It's getting to both of you and Sam for one can't go on like this. I don't think you can either." I know he's right.  
  
"There's nothing we can do. It's against regulations." He looks thoughtful.   
  
"Just, don't forget she has feelings too." I don't really know what he means, but I nod my thanks anyway.  
  
I make my way to the locker room, to prepare for my next mission. I still feel optimistic, but the bounce has left my heart. I turn the handle to see Carter sitting on the bench.   
  
"General Hammond wants to see you." She tells me looking up from something she's reading.  
  
"Are you ok?" I ask her, thinking about what Daniel said.  
  
"Why wouldn't I be?" She replies.  
  
"No reason." I say and turn round and walk away.  
  
  
  
"Come in," comes the voice from somewhere in the deep dark regions of General Hammonds office. "Colonel, sit down. I know this is a bit out of the blue, but I need to know if you have feelings for Major Carter."  
  
"Yes, Sir." I say unhappily after a long silence that mainly consisted of me staring blankly at the general doing scarily accurate impressions of a goldfish. She's probably going to get transferred...or I'll get court marshalled... SHIT, I'll get court marshalled! "But we haven't done anything or anything," I say quickly.  
  
"I know Colonel. It's ok. I just wanted to say that, well..." he pauses, obviously wondering how to phrase his next sentence "...even the best of us can be blind if we need to be. Do you understand?" I think I just hallucinated. I pinch myself. No, I'm still awake. OH MY GOD. "Do you understand?" General Hammond asks again.  
  
"Yes sir, thank you." I walk off in a daze with his words ringing in his ears. As I walk down the corridor with a huge grin on my face, I bump into Carter, literally.  
  
"Are you ok Sir?"  
  
"I'm absolutely fine. Are you going to see Hammond?"  
  
"Yeah," she says. After a long pause she continues. "I'd better get going, I'll see you in the gate room."  
  
"Bye" I call after her. I feel like a rock has just landed in my stomach. We've got a mission this morning. I'll have to leave acting till later.  
  
  
  
The colonel looks different today. He returns my smile when I leave to go to the Generals office after we collided in the corridor with a huge grin that lights up his eyes. It's infectious and I enter the office fully prepared for the day ahead, and I feel more confident about everything than I have in a long time, and I leave the office feeling even better. We have a seemingly routine mission ahead of us and the day looks good. We went through the briefing yesterday so I don't have to watch Jack make paper hats, boats, fortune tellers and aeroplanes under the table when he thinks no one is looking.  
  
We meet up in the gate room. The four of us. A team, the way I like it. The gate dials up and I glance over at my CO. He's staring into the event horizon with a small smile on his face, and I can't help wondering which reality he's in. I never thought of him as the reflective type, but he's always full of surprises. The only problem is that we're meant to have gone by now, but he seems too out of it to give the order.  
  
"Sir?" He jumps, and I can't help the smile spreading across my face, "Shall we go?"   
  
"Ermmm, yeah, good idea," and with that I see his body disappear through the shimmering blue light coming from the stargate. I roll my eyes and glance at Daniel and Teal'c, unable to hide a grin that seems to have settled permanently on my face, before following my CO, like I always do, and always will.  
  
*~*~*~*~  
  
Yep, this planet looks just the same as every other planet. Another day, another desert. If its not deserts it's trees. Thousands of them, but I still have that feeling. Only now that I'm here that optimistic feeling that settled in my stomach this morning, seems to have changed to a nagging feeling. Maybe this mission isn't going to be as good as I thought. I'll keep an eye out. Those damn Goa'uld seem to be everywhere.  
  
"OK, which way?" I ask, not because I don't know, but because I want to fill in the silence that has remained unbroken since the stargate shut down.  
  
"This way Sir," comes the reply from Carter with a smile that could light up the darkest places, and so we go, trudging through the sand towards an old abandoned temple, the reason we're here.   
  
"Alright kids, let's go," I say and I turn around to look at Danny, who looks His usual excited self when confronted with anything over 1000 years old, and then Carter, who smiles right back at me. God I love that smile. I start to walk and I hear the others follow me. As we walk, we split up into two groups. Carter and me lag behind Daniel and Teal'c.  
  
"I take it the general told you the same thing that he told me?" I ask her, to confirm that she knows what I know.  
  
"Yes, but is this what you want? You'll get into more trouble than me if we get found out." She reminds me. I don't know if that's true, but I don't say anything.  
  
"It's what I've always wanted, but only if it's what you want. You've got a better career ahead of you than me." I say, looking at her with a nervous smile. She stops walking and looks in my eyes. Then catching me by surprise she gives me a quick kiss, the first of many I hope. "We'll have to keep it secret though." I say when I've recovered from the shock. She nods in reply. We walk in silent joy for a while.  
  
"I wonder how the general knew. As far as I know, Daniel was the only one who knew." She thinks aloud.  
  
"Daniel." I say, exasperated, but grateful. "I think he might have said something to him." If it's possible, her smile grew even more.  
  
"Can't wait to get back," she whispered, and we start to walk, the gap between us and Daniel and Teal'c not as large as I had expected, mainly because they stopped and looked back when we stopped. As I catch up to Daniel he has a sort of irritating knowing smile.   
  
Sam confronts Daniel, which got me off the hook. "You told Hammond didn't you." He has a guilty look on his face. "Thank you!" He looks at me, and I nod my thanks and start to walk.  
  
  
  
We walk into the temple and through a series of corridors until we reach a large-ish room with writing all over the walls. Daniel runs over to the nearest section, and Teal'c stands near the entrance. That leaves me and Jack to take a look around. After a while, Jack sits on a rock near the edge of the room, and I can see and feel him watching me. It's a nice feeling so I let him carry on, wondering how often he watches me when I'm not looking.   
  
What's this? It looks like a black pebble, with a picture of a beetle in gold on the surface. I go to pick it up, vaguely thinking of showing it to Daniel, but as soon as I touch it, my hand disappears. I pull my hand away in surprise and turn round to look at Jack who is on his feet walking towards me, concerned. When he reaches me, I reassure him, and then Daniel breaks the silence, apparently oblivious to the things that have been happening.  
  
"This is interesting, this section of text says that there's an object that makes anyone who touches it with their bare skin invisible." I smile, looks like I've found it. I pick it up with the sleeve of my jacket.  
  
"Daniel, I think I've..." but I never finish my sentence because at that moment the sound of the ring transporters activating reaches my ears, and to my surprise several Jaffa appear before me. I shove the stone in my pocket and open fire along side my team mates. Caught by surprise, the Jaffa don't stand a chance, however more come, and before we can finish off one lot, the next arrive, until about twenty Jaffa surround us. I see Jack mentally curse the goa'uld before allowing himself to be led off. We are put in separate rooms, and disarmed, but they don't find the stone in my pocket. It's only small, about the size of the stones you find in the middle of nectarines.   
  
I decide that the stone is the only way I'm going to get out of this. I take the stone out of my pocket and put it inside my boot, against the skin of my ankle. It's uncomfortable, but necessary. I stand round the corner from the entrance to the cell that I've been dumped in, hoping they come for me before the others. When they eventually do come, they walk right in before realising I'm not there. By then it's too late. I creep up behind one of them, take his raised zat gun from his hands, being careful not to point it at me, then shoot both Jaffa once, twice, three times. Then I leave to find the others. My heart sinks as I see Jack sitting in the corner of his cell, head in his hands. I open the door and go in. I sit beside him, and remove the stone from my boot, so he can see me. He stares at me, surprised, but grateful at the chance to escape. We walk out the cell, both visible, each time we come to a corner, I scout ahead using the stone, and each time Jaffa come, we press against the wall both touching the stone, until we reach first Teal'c, then Daniel. I gave each of them hurried explanations as to how we could become invisible, and Daniels eyes lit up when he saw the stone.   
  
We head towards the nearest ring room. If I thought this was going to be easy I was wrong. In the ring room, about 5 Jaffa are there, guarding it. It looks like news of our escape went round the ship like wild fire. I don't know why they bothered though. We can't use them yet, we're in hyperspace. We're moving.  
  
We back off, to an empty room, and discuss our options. Jack's all for blowing the mother ship up once we stop moving, and I want to agree, but we have no weapons.   
  
"If you head to the ring room, and take out all the Jaffa, I'll go to the main... er... place, blow it up and head back to meet you before it blows." Jack says.  
  
"That's not as easy as it sounds, you'd have to rearrange the crystals in exactly the right way to give you enough time to get back to the ring room, it's a long way from here, and we don't have any explosives. I'll have to go." I say. Jack does not look happy at this idea, but before he can come up with another plan, we feel the jolt telling us we've arrived. I take the stone and put it back in my boot. "Just go sir, there's no time," I say as I see him hesitate.   
  
"O'Neill, we must go," comes Teal'c's voice. This reassures me that he won't do anything stupid, so I leave, and run through the corridors to the main engine. Once I get there, I have to shoot a few Jaffa to get to the crystals, but I catch them be surprise, and rearrange the crystals carefully. I have fifteen minutes to get the hell out of here. I start running. I keep bashing into Jaffa as I run, but as they can't see me it doesn't matter. They're uniforms are made of metal though, so it's more than a little painful. I reach the ring room, to see the bodies of Jaffa all around me. I then see my team mates with they're weapons raised. Well, at least Teal'c and Jack did. Daniel was lying unconscious on the floor, in the centre of the rings. I shut the doors behind me, and remove the stone from my boot, putting it in my pocket. The relief on Jack's face tells me he'd been worried, but there isn't any time to do anything except activate the rings, which I did.   
  
  
  
We arrive in a clearing in a forest, and through the trees not far away I can see the gate. The gate's not heavily guarded, presumably because the ship has only just arrived. We blend into the trees in case any more Jaffa ring down and think about things.   
  
"I'll use the stone to go and attack a few Jaffa without them noticing, and you two watch my back." I say to Sam and Teal'c. Sam opens her mouth in protest. "That's an order, Carter." She nods and picks up the zat gun she took of one of the Jaffa in the ring room. Teal'c does he same. She reaches into her pocket and vanishes. I begin to think she's gone instead of me, but I feel the stone being pressed into my hands and see her reappear before me.   
  
"Put the stone inside your boot, Sir, so you have both hands free." She tells me and I give wince as the stone goes in my boot that no one can see. "Good luck."   
  
I creep up to the nearest Jaffa and with my invisible zat gun, shoot him twice. The others shoot in the direction I had been standing, but I had moved as soon as I had shot the zat. I did this with another two Jaffa, before I hear shots being fired from the direction of the wood. Seeing Jaffa start to fall around me, I quickly take out another two Jaffa, and stop the last Jaffa from shooting Teal'c. I remove the stone and see Carter and Teal'c, carrying Daniel, running towards me. Suddenly, she raises her weapon and points it in my direction, and before I can even think I feel the electricity go through me and lose consciousness briefly. I hear a thud behind me and Sam runs towards me to help me up. I see the dead body of the Jaffa that shot me beside me.  
  
"Dial us up Carter," I say and she does and in next to no time, I'm standing on the ramp dreading the debriefing.   
  
"Welcome home SG1, report to the infirmary," Comes General Hammond's voice as Teal'c places Daniel on a trolley.   
  
It seems like forever before we can go home, but as the debriefing isn't till tomorrow, it probably wasn't actually that long. After waiting for Sam to deposit the stone in her lab, we both get into our separate cars and both drive over to my place. When we shut the door behind us, we stand there in the corridor, looking deep into each other's eyes. Slowly I reach out and pull her towards me before kissing her gently. When we eventually pull away Sam's face is almost nothing but a smile. I put my arm found her back and lead her into the next room.  
  
"Do you want anything to drink?" I ask, walking into the kitchen. I'm not too sure why I asked her that, but I thought it was probably best to go through the motions.   
  
"No," comes a voice from just behind, and I feel her hands encircle my waist. The second kiss was more passionate than the first, but not as long. When we pull away I hear a voice in my ear. "I love you Jack." And I realise that although I've heard those words said before, by other people, it's never felt so... good. There's only one way to reply to something like that.  
  
"I love you too." I say and with a short but sweet kiss, we start to head up the stairs. 


End file.
